With tons of agencies coming off a hot 2021, new budgets are being spent on as many as nine new hires at a time, with goals to expand new strategy, align financials with new client growth and join industry vets in small spaces to foster creativity. Check out whose rosters just gained new team leaders this week.
1o8
Performance marketing agency 1o8 hired Stephen Gaither as its executive vice president of growth and strategy. Having previously founded his own agency with a successful exit, Gaither has worked with clients like Dish Network, Smithfield Foods and Unilever.
Following a year of 116% growth and client wins with brands like Ty, Mason Dixie Foods and Mush, the agency is looking to expand its consumer portfolio in 2022.
Anchor Worldwide
Will Ramos is joining independent creative agency Anchor Worldwide in the agency’s new role of strategy director. Ramos, formerly social-strategy director at Gut, will work to enact large-scale ideas within a smaller agency environment. The transition comes after a series of new hires across team to support new clients and initiatives.
AICP
The 2022 AICP Post Awards, honoring accomplishments in post production as part of the larger AICP Awards competitions, announced its appointment of Yvette Cobarrubias as chairperson. Cobarrubias is the co-founder and managing partner of Cosmo Street, an international post production company.
Angry Butterfly
Industry veteran Raul Garcia is joining independent startup shop Angry Butterfly as its executive creative director. Garcia has over two decades of experience working at creative agencies in the U.S. and Canada, including Momentum Toronto, David&Goliath and Taxi. Garcia will work alongside Erin Kawalecki, agency partner and chief creative officer, to lead creative at the agency.
Anomaly New York
Anomaly New York welcomed executive creative director Jaclyn Rink Crowley and head of production Dan Blaney to its creative leadership roster. Crowley previously worked at Weiden+Kennedy NY as creative director for six years, gaining experience with brands like HBO, Delta, Duracell and AT&T. She’ll work with Seth Jacobs, also a executive creative director at Anomaly, in the leadership post. Blaney last worked at Apple as head of production managing integrated production across services and has additional experience in prior roles at BBDO and W+K.
BBH
Rory Forrest is joining BBH London as creative director of its in-house production company, Black Sheep Studios. Forrest spent the last eight years in Los Angeles building his career at Mistress (The Many) and Fullscreen Media. He will return to London, where he first began his career as art director at Grey London, to work with head of production Stephen Ledger-Lomas to lead creative output and commercial growth.
Ciceron
90% women-led organization Ciceron is welcoming Tina White as its new CEO, allowing founder and former CEO Andrew Eklund to extend his role to company visionary. White takes the seat following a year of significant growth for Ciceron that led to a new office location and an expanded client portfolio featuring Warner Music and Interscope Records.
Croud
Full-service digital marketing agency Croud announced the appointment of Jon King as its first group general manager. King, previously the CEO of Performics, initially joined as a consultant, but decided to join full time as a result of rapid expansion.
He will manage the integration of the agency’s latest acquisitions, such as Verb brands, will support management teams and will help to scale the business.
Curious Plot
Curious Plot is bringing on Dean Huff, an industry veteran with nearly 30 years of experience in branding and marketing communications strategy, as executive vice president, integration lead. Huff will support team integrations to deliver work back to clientele.
DDB Middle East
DDB Middle East has been selected by Rakbank to lead its communications. The agency will work to refresh Rakbank’s brand strategy through a creative campaign that showcases Simply Better products and services.
Definition 6
Customer experience agency Definition 6 announced the appointment of Jennifer Briskin as its new chief people officer. Previously having held HR positions at GE and Fiserv, Inc., Briskin is experienced across industries, including technology, consumer products and manufacturing. She’ll work with CEO Jeff Katz and president Jason Rockman to implement initiatives in DEI, talent development, human capital strategy and employee wellbeing.
Engine Creative
After serving as Engine Creative’s CEO since 2019, Ete Davies is leaving his post to focus on diversity initiatives such as his own organization, CultureHeroes, and his parents’ charity, St. Thomas’s Hospital in Enugu, Nigeria. During his term at Engine Creative, Davies led impressive commercial growth, modernized the agency and transformed its diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
Essence
Essence has named Laura Wade its new head of sustainability, where she will work to build sustainable media and marketing practices with clients and hold the agency to its net-zero carbon targets. Wade served as Essence’s vp of content and innovation for three years prior and will expand her role to grow an environmentally sustainable digital media ecosystem.
Fiducia Investors
Fiducia Investors announced its investment in Predictive VC, a leading venture capital firm for high-growth tech companies known for its interests the metaverse, machine learning and artificial technology.
The firm also appointed George A. King as its vice chairman and chief investment officer. King joins Fiducia Investors with a background of two successful IPOs, advisory closings of $8b+ and 325+ capital closings of $20b+.
Flynn Agency
Flynn Agency announced the appointment of Katie Flynn, a third-generation Flynn family company leader, as its new president. Having worked with the company for five years prior, she brings with her knowledge of her experiences with clients including Pfizer, MassMutual and Quest Diagnostics. In this role, she’ll work to manage day-to-day operations, plan future strategy and maintain the company’s culture of employee longevity and portfolio expansion.
FP7McCann MENAT
Federico Fanti, with 20 years of industry experience that originally began at McCann Milan, is joining FP7McCann MENAT as chief creative officer. Fanti returns after working at BBDO Guerrero with brands like Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo and MARS, as well Y&R Moscow, where he led the agency to winning its first ever Cannes Lion in 2013.
Fuse Create
Independent agency Fuse Create began the new year with nine new hires after a successful year in 2021. Madison Rogers and Frank Neufeld joined as creative strategist and art director. Nisha Nair joins as account coordinator, Terra Stephen as integrated producer, Emilie Belzile as media planner and buyer and Natalie Jacombe as media coordinator. Leanne Hutchison and Eric Nogueira are joining the administrative team and Tricia Rego is signing on as art director intern.
Huge
Global experience company Huge has named Frisco Chau, champion of the democratization of data for 25 years, as its newest global head of data and insights. Chau, passionate about using data to unite people, products and performance, will scale the company’s data science, analytics and research capabilities.
Horizon Media
Horizon Media’s WHY group exists to conduct analyses on the intersection of culture, people and brands. To expand the group’s capabilities, the team welcomed Maxine Gurevich as its senior vp of cultural intelligence. Coming from her previous role as vp of insights and strategy at VaynerMedia, Gurevich will work to identify emerging industry, brand and cultural trends in order to improve client consultation and agency thought leadership.
Imre
After a year of 23% top line growth and $45 million in annual revenue, Imre welcomes Louis-Philippe Cavollo as chief financial officer. Cavollo, with more than 25 years of experience in the marketing and advertising industry, aims to empower Imre’s growth by aligning its financial function with its scale.
Isobar
Isobar’s newly-appointed president for North America is Andrew Kasprzycki, a person equally knowledgeable in data, tech and creativity.
Kasprzycki has 25-plus years of global expertise leveling up digital disciplines and leading brands like Airbnb, Twitter, Houzz, Microsoft, Gatorade and Miller Lite in executive roles at DDB, Publicis Groupe and Starcom. Kasprzycki’s remit is to supercharge growth for Isobar and its clients by identifying new and organic business growth opportunities, building upon Isobar’s vision, strategy and positioning for the North America region and devising new talent enablement and retention programs.
Johannes Leonardo
NY-based independent agency Johannes Leonardo is welcoming three new hires in leadership roles at the company.
Zoe Kessler, who comes from a role as creative director at TBWA/Chiat/Day, will serve as group creative director. Jonathan Santana, with over 20 years of experience working with brands like Guinness, Generals Motors and Ikea, will join Kessler as group creative director. Marjorie Vardo, who worked at BBDO with clients including Bacardi, Macy’s and St-Germain, will take the role of creative lead.
Media.Monks
Media.Monks hired Maria Nordstrom as chief growth officer in EMEA to lead its development into partner of record for clients. Nordstrom brings experience leading go-to-market strategy at Craft, IPG Studios and McCann World Group with brands like L’Oreal, Pandora and Swarovski.
Modern Formula
Media agency Modern Formula is bringing on Min Kwak as its vice president, head of media. Kwak previously held leadership roles at OMG23 in Burbank and Publicis Groupe’s Starcom, working with accounts such as ABC’s primetime shows and films La La Land, John Wick 2 and 3 and Blindspotting.
Nomad
Nomad Editing Company is expanding its team in New York City, now with the promotion of Kallie Billadeau from assistant editor to editor. With three years of experience at the company, Billadeau has worked with Aveeno on a campaign featuring WNBA star Skylar-Diggins Smith, as well as Under Armour’s 2021 Pride Collection campaign.
Republica Havas
Republica Havas is bringing on Catarina Gonçalves as its new chief strategy officer to lead strategy, data and analytics, research, content and social media. Experienced globally in brand and creative strategy leadership, Gonçalves will work to bolster the agency’s strategic growth initiatives.
Simpactful
Simpactful, a CPG/Retail consultancy firm, announced it has promoted three industry leaders to senior partner. Heather Burgess, previously in marketing and advertising roles at Proctor & Gamble and Amazon, will lead marketing and innovation. Jill McIntosh, with executive experience at The Kroger Company and a background in law, will head food, beverage and emerging brands. Marcy Selva, with 30+ years of experience in sales at Proctor & Gamble, will lead customer strategy development and go-to-market practices.
Sköna
B2B technology marketing-focused agency Sköna hired Elodie Badoual as an account manager. Badoual previously served as a steering communicate member for La French Tech Bangkok and worked with brands including Couchbase, Druva, Aurora Solar, Bugcrowd and Sigma Computing.
Stagwell
To drive global product innovation, Stagwell announced its marketing cloud leadership team, featuring three new senior executives. Abe Geiger, coming from Hudson MX, will serve as chief product officer. Elspeth Paige Rollert, previously global head of partnership marketing at Uber, will be the chief marketing officer. Matt Lochner, who recently earned his JD at Harvard University, will be the managing director.
Teads
Global media platform Teads is bolstering its staff with many new hires in order increase vertical specialists, deliver greater insights and grow its customer experiences teams.
Andrea Lo Presti joins as industry director, James Colborn joins as head of global data, Henry Vernon as head of insights U.K., Becky Waring as global client partner, insights and measurement, Amanda Tushingham as head of retail and finally, Ryan Virgo as global industry director of entertainment.
Team One
Think tank and strategic consultancy of Team One, The Legacy Lab, named the recipient of its foundation scholarship, a fund that seeks to uplift the next generation of legacy makers. With applicants from universities across the country, the winner is Kimiloluwa Fafowora, a student at Stanford Graduate School of Business who has fought for representation, helping to recruit and hire people of diverse backgrounds through her work. Fafowora founded ecommerce software company Meet Klara to diversify the advertising industry by reframing the standards of beauty.
Runner-ups include Chanice McClover-Lee, a sociology and English undergraduate at Howard University, Keia Jones, a Ph.D. student pursuing a dual-degree in rural sociology and international agriculture and development at Penn State, Karyn Onyeneho, a fifth-year Ph.D. candidate studying nutritional sciences at Howard University, Stevens Leconte, a sophomore at Howard University majoring in psychology, Justin E. Bell, a senior double-majoring in voice performance and choral music education at The University of Southern Mississippi and Touré Owens, a student studying entrepreneurship at Stanford Business School.
Team Whistle
Global sports and entertainment media company Team Whistle named its new president, Joe Caporoso. Caporoso previously served as evp of media, where he managed all content across social channels. He will now expand his role to run the company’s business strategy, performance and partnerships.
The Social Standard
Influencer marketing agency The Social Standard kicked off 2022 with four new hires to support cross-team functions.
Abhish Desai, law school graduate and social media content creator with over 500,000 followers, is joining as creative director. Steven Blutsein comes to The Social Standard from his previous role as creative director at Hawke Media and will serve as head of performance creative.
Dan Castiglione, experienced in PR and media relations for clients like Adore Me, TJ Maxx, and Ralph Lauren, will work as account manager. Zandra Drysdale, previously marketing director at TEDxOakland, will serve as inside sales executive.